Джеффри Дивер - Transgressions

We’ll be together forever...

He raced through downtown Hamilton at nearly three times the speed limit. As if the Headless Horseman himself were galloping close behind.

His gray sedan swerved down the long driveway leading to the Whitley house, bounding off the asphalt and taking out a bed of blooming white azaleas.

He grimaced at the damage as he skidded to a stop in front of the doorway.

Leaping from his car, he noticed a Hamilton Village police car and a boxy county ambulance pull up. Two officers and two medical technicians jogged to meet him and they all sprinted to the garage door. He smelled fumes and could hear the rattle of a car engine inside.

As a uniformed cop banged on the door, Tal noticed a handwritten note taped to the front.

WARNING: The garage is filled with dangrous fumes. We’ve left the remote control on the groun in front of the flower pot. Please use it to the door and let it air out before entring.

“No!” Tal dropped the note and began tugging futilely at the door, which was locked from the inside. In the dark they couldn’t immediately find the remote so a fireman with an axe ran to the side door and broke it open with one swing.

But they were too late.

To save either of them.

Once again it was a multiple suicide. Another husband and wife.

Samuel and Elizabeth Whitley were in the garage, reclining in an open convertible, a old-fashioned MG sports car. While one officer had shut off the engine and firemen rigged a vent fan, the medical techs had pulled them out of the car and rested them on the driveway. They’d attempted to revive them but the efforts were futile. The couple had been very efficient in their planning; they’d sealed the doors, vents, and windows of the garage with duct tape. Shades had been drawn, so no one could look inside and interrupt their deaths. Only the unusual rattle of the engine had alerted a dog-walking neighbor that something was wrong.

Talbot Simms stared at them, numb. No blood this time but the deaths were just as horrible to him — seeing the bodies and noting the detachment in their planning: the thoughtfulness of the warning note, its cordial tone, the care in sealing the garage. And the underlying uneasiness; like the Bensons’ note, this one was written in unsteady writing and there were misspellings — “dangrous” — and a missing word or two: “use it to the door...”

The uniformed officers made a circuit of the house, to make certain nobody else was inside and had been affected by the carbon monoxide. Tal too entered but hesitated at first when he smelled a strong odor of fumes. But then he realized that the scent wasn’t auto exhaust but smoke from the fireplace. Brandy glasses and a dusty bottle sat on the table in front of a small couch. They’d had a final romantic drink together in front of a fire — and then died.

“Anybody else here?” Tal asked the cops as they returned to the main floor.

“No, it’s clean. Neatest house I’ve ever seen. Looks like it was just scrubbed. Weird, cleaning the house to kill yourself.”

In the kitchen they found another note, the handwriting just as unsteady as the warning about the gas.

To our friends and family:

We do this with great joy in hearts and with love for everone in our family and everyone we’ve known. Don’t feel any sorrow; weve never been happier.

The letter ended with the name, address, and phone number of their attorney. Tal lifted his mobile phone from his pocket and called the number.

“Hello.”

“Mr. Wells, please. This is Detective Simms with the county police.”

A hesitation. “Yes, sir?” the voice asked.

The pause was now on Tal’s part. “Mr. Wells?”

“That’s right.”

“You’re the Whitleys’ attorney?”

“That’s right. What’s this about?”

Tal took a deep breath. “I’m sorry to tell you that they’ve... passed away. It was a suicide. We found your name in their note.”

“My, God, no What happened?”

“How, you mean? In their garage. Their car exhaust.”

“When?”

“Tonight. A little while ago.”

“No!... Both of them? Not both of them?”

“I’m afraid so,” Tal replied.

There was a long pause. Finally the lawyer, clearly shaken, whispered, “I should’ve guessed.”

“How’s that? Had they talked about it?”

“No, no. But Sam was sick.”

“Sick?”

“His heart. It was pretty serious.”

Just like Don Benson.

More common denominators.

“His wife? Was she sick too?”

“Oh, Elizabeth. No. She was in pretty good health... Does the daughter know?”

“They have a daughter?” This news instantly made the deaths exponentially more tragic.

“She lives in the area. I’ll call her.” He sighed. “That’s what they pay me for... Well, thank you, Officer... What was your name again?”

“Simms.”

“Thank you.”

Tal put his phone away and started slowly through the house. It reminded him of the Bensons’. Tastefully opulent. Only more so. The Whitleys were, he guessed, much richer.

Glancing at the pictures on the wall, many of which showed a cute little girl who’d grown into a beautiful young woman.

He was grateful that the lawyer would be making the call to their daughter.

Tal walked into the kitchen. No calendars here.

He looked again at the note.

Joy... Never been happier.

Nearby was another document. He looked it over and frowned. Curious. It was a receipt for the purchase of a restored MG automobile. Whitley’d paid for a deposit on the car earlier but had given the dealer the balance today.

Tal walked to the garage and hesitated before entering. But he steeled up his courage and stepped inside, glanced at the tarps covering the bodies. He located the vehicle identification number. Yes, this was the same car as on the receipt.

Whitley had bought an expensive restored antique vehicle today, driven it home and then killed himself and his wife.

Why?

There was motion in the driveway. Tal watched a long, dark-gray van pull up outside, LEIGHEY’S FUNERAL HOME was printed on the side. Already? Had the officers called or the lawyer? Two men got out of the hearse and walked up to a uniformed officer. They seemed to know each other.

Then Tal paused. He noticed something familiar. He picked up a book on a table in the den. Making the Final Journey.

The same book the Bensons had.

Too many common denominators. The suicide book, the heart diseases, spouses also dying.

Tal walked into the living room and found the older trooper filling out a form — not his questionnaire, Tal noticed. He asked one of the men from the funeral home, “What’re you doing with the bodies?”

“Instructions were cremation as soon as possible.”

“Can we hold off on that?”

“Hold off?” he asked and glanced at the Hamilton officer. “How do you mean, Detective?”

Tal said, “Get an autopsy?”

“Why?”

“Just wondering if we can.”

“You’re county,” the heavy-set cop said. “You’re the boss. Only, I mean, you know — you can’t do it halfway. Either you declare a twenty-one-twenty-four or you don’t.”

Oh, that. He wondered what exactly it was.

A glance at the sports car. “Okay, I’ll do that. I’m declaring a twenty-four-twenty-one.”

“You mean twenty-one-twenty-four... You sure about this?” the officer asked, looking uncertainly toward the funeral home assistant, who was frowning; even he apparently knew more about the mysterious 2124 than Tal did.

The statistician looked outside and saw the other man from the funeral home pull a stretcher out of the back of the hearse and walk toward the bodies.